WiR 4.12.08: Forgiveness at the Charity Stripe

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Before we get into the meat of this Week in Review, I want to take a moment and give a gigantic shout out to us here at Steve's Word. Yes, we rule. And even though we make sure to give each other tons of positive reinforcement around our HQ, it's nice to get some validation from the outside world. Last year, we made a great short called Math Bus: Tax Season, a parody of Bang Bus. It was featured for a day on myspace and what a crazy day that was. Well, it's gotten even more crazy this week, as Math Bus appeared as the #1 Featured video on YouTube on Wednesday and was written about on gawker on Thursday. All in all, it was a wild ride and thanks to everyone who watched and commented on the little speck of genius that we've contributed to the interwebs.

Onto the Week in Review...

I'm not sure if you've heard the latest establishment media absurdity, but bloggers are dying. They are dropping from the trees, falling from the sky, pretty much just expiring before our very eyes. Really, you should be careful how much time you spend at a computer these days, lest the Grim Reaper mistake you for a blogger and strike you down. It's a good thing that we here at Steve's Word engage in poignant discourse in an irreverent news magazine style as opposed to simply pooling our inane thoughts for a collective blog because otherwise I'd be worried about my friends. No seriously, it's a sad time for everyone.

Except, of course, for the media who's having their usual field day with something as sensational and extravagant as this. But can you blame them, bloggers are dying! And by bloggers I mean two middle aged guys who type for a living, kind of like a whole shitload of people out there. It's understandable that the media would play this up - it was on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, an awfully well-read edition of the paper - because "real" reporters hate bloggers, who only recently shed the cliché of the basement-dwelling momma's boys with cheetos-covered fingers. Too bad for them that neither of these poor bastards died at home, but rather where they were blogging on location. But of course the media isn't the only villian this week. Maybe I should just start at the beginning.

This week began with a real thriller of an NCAA title game. It had it all, thrilling circus shots, amazing comebacks, clutch shots, a miracle three-pointer at the buzzer to tie and a great overtime. In the end, Kansas emerged over a shell-shocked Memphis team who knew they had the game in their hands and let it slip away, the most difficult kind of loss. Down the stretch of regulation, Memphis was done in by terrible free-throw shooting; their two best players missed four out of five. Hitting those shots would have guaranteed victory and missing them left the door open for Kansas. This seems like an epic meltdown but really it was quite predictable. Memphis had a woefully low free throw percentage throughout the regular season and for months there was speculation that this flaw would bite them in the end, and it did, even as Coach John Calipari maintained it wasn't a problem. Sometimes you just can't get out of your own way, I guess.

Drama in the sports world didn't end there. As I'm sure you've heard, many people are really angry about China's human rights policies and they're taking out that anger on the Olympic Torch. There's been some totally retarded backlash against the protesters which makes no sense considering there never has been nor never should be a separation between the Olympics and politics. The Olympics and politics are inextricably linked, from Berlin to Munich to Moscow. It's inconceivable that anyone would ever posit the idea that we should just play along with the IOC and what was supposed to be a gigantic PR push for the whole country of China. This is why it's also wrong to boycott, you can't make a statement if you're not there, and I think Jesse Owens American Icon might agree. It's really no surprise that protests against China via the Olympics are happening now, now is when the issues are most visible, I get it. But I have to say, it's not like these issues are new, ten years ago when Bejing was awarded the games, China's crimes were just as great, or awful. I just wish there was this kind of uprising of emotion when Bejing was being considered for the games. I mean, isn't it better punishment to make sure the Olympics aren't held in China while this is the situation rather than wage war against the person who happens to be holding the Torch as it passes though? It's tough to underestimate the power of the media in that regard. No one was watching when the IOC made it's boneheaded decision but now that the games are imminent and the cameras are rolling, the casual observer might give a damn.

Forgive me if I seem a little cynical today, especially about what people will do when cameras are rolling and a moment in the spotlight seems just around the bend. It's not like this week didn't see the emergence of a tape of some girls beating the shit out of one of their friends with the express purpose of getting a million hits on YouTube. Just look at our own Attorney General who blatantly lied about something that did not happen prior to the 9/11 attacks. The man sat before Congress and conjured up a mysterious phone call that, had we been illegally listening in on phone conversations then the way we are now, would have helped us prevent the attacks. Bear in mind two things: one, that every member of the 9/11 Commission has called this a total and complete fallacy and two, that in the summer of 2001 a document called, let me see if I can call this up...what was it? what the hell was it called? oh i got it, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack US" passed over about a dozen White House desks and nothing happened. But, yeah, that's good Mukasey, a made-up phone call will convince us all that we could have stopped it then and justifies all of the bs that we live with now. Hey, how 'bout we just stop having elections while we're at it.

But I'm not going to get all weepy about the state of the world, because it's Spring and I'm too horny to be that despondent. Actually, that's a total lie but I think it's a tale for another time. All I know is, there's a way out of this mess. There's gotta be. Maybe it will have something to do with next November, maybe it will have something to do with the Olympics this summer. After all, don't you remember those great moments from Olympics past? I do, at least some of them. And now that the IOC has gotten tough on steriods (or tougher at any rate) we can begin to re-enjoy all the running, hurdling, and discus that makes the Summer Games so great. You see, it's all about getting back to the fundamentals. It's all about practicing free-throw shooting.